Monthly Archives: August 2013

You know, I’m a little goofy. I like alliterations if you haven’t noticed. Even my blog title is a little nuts-o. But it fits me. 😀 Happy Monday! I hope you had a good weekend.

Weekend Summary:

So I’ll get to my mushroom recipe in a minute, but first I’m going to fulfill the title of this post and muse a bit. As you know, this past week I was on vacation (and it’s continuing this week too). I stepped outside my box a bit and tried a few new things. Oh, yes, I did. Let’s see, some were geared to promoting a healthy life, one… notsomuch. I started off with attending my husband’s workouts with his trainer. You can read about how that went here. It was so much fun; I’ve now adopted his trainer as my own. I am looking forward to a new workout routine. What else did I do that was a little outside my box? Well, I ran my first 5k. That was fun. I run once in a while around the neighborhood and on the treadmill at the gym, but the little competitor inside me wanted to know if I could do a “race.” Apparently, that competitor isn’t quite so little. Yeah, I think I’ve kinda got the fever now. The run was fairly small as far as the number of participants. There were only 33 of us. I wasn’t the fastest in my age group, but I wasn’t the slowest, either. I was happy with the 2nd place ribbon. Here’s a picture of me before I left the house.

I got a lot of comments about the tutu and it was great motivation to keep on chuggin’. It was a great time. I’ve got ideas for my next run. Shall I do the local color run? Or maybe a “Run From the Law” where you’re being chased down by the local police? Only if they wear all their gear could I possibly be faster. I’ve seen some of those guys run.

One more thing I did this last week that was way, way, way outside my box was get a tattoo! Those of you who know me personally, know that I’m a very conservative, traditional type of gal. Obviously, I take good care of my body and am cautious about products that I use that may be harmful, whether it’s cleaning products at home, my skin care regimen, and even breathing in second-hand smoke (ick!). So having a tattoo, some people believe, is completely contrary to my practice! I guess I would have to agree, but the message of the artwork speaks so clearly about who I am and describes this journey that I am on. I feel so strongly about this lifestyle I have chosen that I felt it was appropriate. Check it out:

The picture was taken right after I got home, so it was still pretty inflamed. It’s still a work in progress and I’m looking forward to getting it finished. Can you see the eggplant in there? Won’t that look cool all purple? And the berries in the front? I’m so excited! I do have to say it hurt a little, but after a while you sort of get used to it.

Powered by Plants & Mushrooms too:

Have you ever had crustless pizza? Sounds pretty good, huh? They are. It’s another thinking-outside-the-box event!

The crust is a portabella mushroom and you just put in some pizza sauce, some cashew cheese and then your favorite pizza veggies — I used peppers & olives — and then bake and broil. You can click on the picture to go directly to the recipe. They’re so fresh and light. You get the flavor of a pizza without the heaviness of all that greasy cheese and the thick doughy crust. Perfect, in my book! Just add a salad and you’ve got a perfect meal. A dessert of cantaloupe rounded out a well-balanced meal.

Weekend Wrap Up:

That’s pretty much it, folks. I guess having time off during the week gives me a little breathing room on the weekends. I’m looking forward to another week off. I’ve got a few appointments and some downtime too. Maybe a trip to the local zoo to see the new tiger cubs! They look so cuddly.

Don’t forget… the Healthy Vegan Challenge: Fall Edition starts today. It’s a fun Facebook group. If you’d like to join our group, click here. Even if you’re not vegan you can check us out. There’s lots of great ideas for working towards a healthier lifestyle.

I hope your week is great. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer. I will see you back here Friday.

Good morning and happy Friday to you! It always amazes me how quickly the week goes by when I’m on vacation, but yet when I’m at work, it seems to drag along. I hope you have had a good week. Do you have plans for the weekend? Saturday I will be running my first 5k. I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks now. I’ve trained a bit in the gym on a treadmill and this week ran outside three days. Ha! Do you think that’s enough? I am not new to running, but I’ve been pushing myself more than I would if I were just running for fun. I hate to say that I’m getting to be a timer junkie… trying to make each run faster. There are so many things to take into account — traffic and weather are two things that seem to add or shave off just seconds. I don’t even have a good timer; I’m using my pedometer so it’s only as accurate as I can make it by remembering to check the time when I start out.

Friday Fun Fact:

I’m not sure this week’s Fun Fact is a fact, but rather my own personal experience with working out. I’ll tell you right off, the bottom line for me is SWITCH IT UP! Besides the proven fact that your muscles have memory and get used to doing the same workout over and over and eventually you don’t reap much benefit, it is b-o-r-i-n-g!

So I told you on Monday that I went with my Handsome Healthy Hubby to his MixFit workout. Well, I must be a glutton for punishment because I went back Wednesday and today for more! I liked it so much that I signed up for my own sessions a couple times a week. Why did I do this you ask? Though I am a person of routine, I get bored easily. I like predictability in my life and don’t appreciate change too much, but when it comes to working out (or my hair) don’t make it too monotonous. I can handle the M / W / F schedule of aerobics and weight training and T / TH doing High Intensity Interval Training. I like that… for a bit. So the good thing about working out with atorture master personal trainer is you never know what you’re gonna get. Some days you might be doing full body, other days (like today) we did mostly core and upper body. We wanted to save my legs for the run tomorrow. Thanks for that! In the three days I worked out with Frank, I hardly repeated any exercises. There was running on the giant tire, pushing a weighted sled (H³’s favorite), punching on heavy bags, a few weight exercises, slamming a weighted ball, and squats on the giant tire. I think the giant tire is going to be my friend — she says sarcastically. See, when you’re vertically challenged, some things are just more difficult than others. And I happily accept that.

A little about Frank & Ana:

Handsome Healthy Hubby met Frank when he wanted to do a couple of personal training sessions at the local big-chain gym. For them, it was love at first sight, so to speak. They have many things in common, including a twisted sense of humor and a no-nonsense attitude. H³ was happy to be trained by someone knowledgeable in not only weight training but also therapeutic exercise. He wasn’t assigned a 20-something giant-muscle guru who yelled like a drill sergeant and trained you like you were 23. Nope, Frank is a seasoned, soft-spoken mixed martial arts instructor who gently and slowly kills you in the gym. H³ calls him a bad ass, and quite frankly he sorta scares me. He is married to Ana who is also a personal trainer. She’s one tough cookie, too, but is a little softer than Frank. The two of them recently opened their own personal training gym nearby and everybody who trains there is just one big family. I like the feel of it. Frank and Ana are very good at what they do and it’s tough to get time with them, so I was happy to hear that a 5:30 a.m. slot just opened up. I’m looking forward to my new early morning routine. I’ll be officially starting in September.

Here’s a picture of Frank and me after my workout today:

Today’s Recipe:

Yesterday I tried a baked sweet potato oatmeal. I got the idea from a blog post I saw while scanning the interwebs looking for something else. And I’m sorry I can’t remember where I saw it. I didn’t even write down the recipe, so I sorta made up my own as I went. I had another bowl today after my workout. It’s packed with lots of vitamins and nutrients, protein and Omega 3s. I added a little bit of almond milk after I heated it this morning. It does tend to thicken up on the second day. It would also be good drizzled with a little bit of maple syrup, but I’m trying to leave the sweeteners out of things. Click on the picture to be taken to the recipe.

Wrap-Up:

Well, that’s all for today. I hope your weekend is awesome and filled with joyful activities. I will be back here on Monday with some mumblings for sure.
If you’re interested, we’re starting up a new Healthy Vegan Challenge over on Facebook. You can join here. It is a closed group, so just request to join and we’ll approve you!

Happy Monday (well, it’s probably Tuesday by the time you read this). It’s the first day of my vacation and time got away from me so I’m a little tardy. But do not fear, I am here!

Monday Musing:

Because I’m on vacation for a few weeks, the Glaze Family Test Kitchen is fully operational, perhaps much to the chagrin of Handsome Healthy Hubby. 🙂 He’s my test subject when it comes to something new. Over the weekend, it was these tasty pancakes that delighted him. You can click the picture for the recipe.

Banana Pancakes with Peach sauce

Sunday I had a hankerin’ for kale, and this kale salad satisfied my craving:

kale salad with creamy dill dressing

Then on Monday for a little pre-dinner snack, I served up some yummy black bean dip. It was a hit.

“Cheezy” bean dip

You’ll have to wait for the other two recipes. I promise to post them real soon. Promise. Really. I will.

You know how it is when you’re on a stay-cation and you start making lists of things you want to do, then you think about how long you’ll be home (over 2 weeks for me) and you start procrastinating? Okay, well, maybe not everybody does that, but I am a self-proclaimed Princess of Procrastination. Somewhere along the road of life I earned a Doctorate in Delay. I keep adding things to my list and nothing is being crossed off. Some of them are little things (like checking out a new produce stand in the area) and others are bigger tasks (do I really have to work on my vacation? I guess so). Some are just wishful things (going to an interior decorating store I’ve been dreaming about for months) and others are required that I do (did I mention work?) It’s okay. I work well under pressure. So next week, just before I’m getting ready to zip off to Missouri to see myArmy soldier, I’ll be up till the wee hours getting everything done.

I am excited to say, though, that H³ and I were able to get out to a couple of showrooms today and pick out cabinets and counter tops for all three of our bathrooms. It’s time to replace the 1980s cabinetry with new “stuff.” We’ve got it picked out, but we’ll wait to have the job done until October. I am happy that we got the hard part checked off the mental list.

Being on vacation can really cause the creative juices to flow. I don’t want this stay-cation to turn into two weeks of lazy doldrums, so I decided to change it up a bit. I will be accompanying that Handsome Healthy Hubby of mine to his Mix Fit workout. Mix Fit is sort of like CrossFit, but different — don’t ask me how it’s different because I’d never done either one until today. O. M. G. If you happen to see any spare legs laying around, they’re probably mine. My hip joints feel as if my legs are going to pop out of the socket. Now, mind you, I work out between 5 and 7 days a week and I consider myself to be in fairly decent shape. But when you run for a minute on a truck tire that is so big your legs can hardly span it, you quickly realize how not-in-shape you are. And it was a minutes three times, with other stuff in between. Sound easy? Notsomuch! So I describe the after effects to feel somewhat like a Barbie doll leg that has come disjointed from the body and is hanging on, only being supported by the pants that she is wearing. I plan on subjecting myself to this torture incredible workout Wednesday and Friday of this week, so I will report back on Friday how it is going.

A 5k is in my plans for Saturday. I hope I can still run by then! Check out the tutu I made:

That ought to keep me running, huh?! Nobody wants to be the tutu lady seen walking or dragging at the end of the pack! It’s the first time I will run a 5k. I say I can only get better, right?

Wrap Up:

Well, that’s it for me for Monday. Again, I apologize for getting this post done so late, but I was practicing my procrastination and it backfired! I hope you have a terrific week. I’ll see you back here on Friday with an update of my MixFit workouts. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a surprise appearance midweek (oh, I guess it won’t be a surprise, now huh?!).

Oh my goodness! I can hardly contain myself. In just a few short hours I will be on vacation! Or should I say “stay-cation?” We aren’t going anywhere for the first two weeks and the third week y’all know where I’m heading, right? Yep! MISERY as my husband likes to call it. We are going to Alex’s graduation in Missouri! I can’t wait. I’m wondering if it’s possible for a soldier’s mama to embarrass said soldier by huggin’ on him too much. I’m sure I’m not going to be the only one squeezing the heck out of their kid. But I guess I do have to share with Handsome Healthy Hubby and with Miss Cutie Girlfriend. I will save my childish hugs for when we get home. See, I can say all this stuff here without fear that he’ll hide from me then because I know he doesn’t have internet access. I can totally catch him off guard once he’s in the safety of our house. He’ll never see me coming! (enter maniacal laugh here)

Friday Fun Fact:

So I was thinking about some trivia to share with you today. Was I going to go on and on about my new exercise routine for crunch time preparation for a 5k? No, I don’t think so.

How about the great podcast I listened to today that was an interview with vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke? Nahhh. I kind of spaced out during some of it, so I didn’t get as much information as I could have. (But I will share this cool “summit” thing that I’m enjoying).

I know! Let’s talk about what it takes to be successful at what we call a Nutritarian lifestyle. I think I’ve touched on it before, but I get so many questions from people interested in adopting this type of diet-style. It is rather overwhelming at first and I sort of wish I had somebody to bounce questions off of when I first started cuz I had a ton of them. I felt like a pre-schooler asking “why” to everything. These are things that have worked for me and my family. Here goes:

Read a book on plant-based or whole foods diets (Remember, it’s not a diet, but rather a lifestyle). I recommend Eat to Live, Eat for Health, Forks over Knives, Unprocessed, Engine 2 Diet

Each of the doctors that support this dietstyle all have similar philosophies with their own individual take on it. Some eat potatoes, some don’t; grains, no grains; a little animal protein, no animal protein. You’ve got to choose what works best for you.

Journal everything that goes into your mouth for a couple of weeks when you first start

You may want to continue this exercise well into your journey to new health. It’s a great way to track exercise and medical issues, too.

Get rid of foods in your house that aren’t on “the plan”

Trust me, if you have food that you should be avoiding in the house, you’re going to eat them. Save treats for outside of the house. You’re less likely to eat a candy bar, chips or ice cream if you have to get in your car and drive 10 minutes to get it.

Cook large pots of beans and freeze them in 2 cup quantities

I happen to have an electric pressure cooker that makes the process much quicker. 30 minutes start to finish from dry, no soaking required. I keep a variety in the freezer for different uses

Once a week make a large pot of soup for the week

I don’t always have soup in the fridge, but there’s probably three different types in my freezer right now!

Shop the perimeter of the store

This is a must. I spend 80% of my shopping trip in the produce and bulk foods section.

Buy enough veggies for the week, but don’t overbuy. You will probably run out, but it’s better to make a mid-week run than have rotten produce

A lot of cities have Farmer’s Markets now during the week. Run out on your lunch break near your work and grab some more greens if you need them. If you’ve got produce that’s going south, cook it up or throw it in a pot with beans, broth and you’ve got instant soup!

Cut up fresh veggies and store in baggies or containers for quick snacks

This works great for the kids. Also makes for quick lunches on the go when you know you’ll be running errands all day and might get hungry while you’re out. It will help you avoid the drive-through.

Just wash them, roll them between towels to remove the moisture and store. You can either store them wrapped in the towel (no joke) or, without chopping them, lay them in those big plastic containers that spinach comes in.

You can make smoothies the night before so you don’t wake people with the noisy blender

The sound of the Vitamix just doesn’t appeal to me in the morning most days. I prefer to make mine at night and refrigerate it until the morning. It’s nice and cold that way. You’ll want to consume your tasty Shrek juice within 24 hours. After that, the smoothies start to lose their nutritional value.

This is one of my favorite breakfasts. You can check out one recipe here. I have this a few times a week… when I’m not eating banana roll-ups, which is just a banana and a schmear of almond butter and raisins rolled up in a whole wheat tortilla. Easy to handle on the run or in the car for the commute.

Bean patties store great in the freezer.

Make up a double batch of these and use them on the nights when life is hectic and there’s no time to spend in the kitchen. A few minutes in the microwave and served with a giant salad. It’s just as quick as ordering pizza.

Eat only when hungry. You can read more about that here. You so do not want to be responding to toxic hunger.

I’m sure there are tons of things I didn’t cover. If you have a question that you’re dying to ask, go ahead and post it in the comments section and I’ll happily reply. Or if you’re a long-time “Nute,” feel free to add your own hints. We can all use some help to make this easy!

Wrap Up:

I hope you’ve got fun plans for the weekend. I’ve not got anything planned. Rain is in the forecast and I’m not so sure hiking will be optimal in the rain. It may have to hold off until a free day during the week. Since I’ll be slumming it for a couple of weeks, it might be nice to have a mid-week outing. Well, as a cute little pig used to say, “Th- th- th-… That’s all, folks!”

Hello, you! And hello, Monday. We might as well face it head-on. Monday is here and we can’t do anything about it. Was your weekend quiet and refreshing? Were you busy and running errands? I was a stay-at-home Nutritarian this weekend. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen on Saturday. There was no hike as we had a prediction of thunderstorms, and quite frankly being out in the wilderness in thunder and lightning is just a little too scary for me. It turns out we probably would have been okay, but — ya know, sooner or later dishes need to be washed and toilets need to be scrubbed, so I was productive at home. I did get in a quick walk Sunday night, so all is not lost.

What I cooked:

So it seems like for the last couple of weeks my meal planning creativity has gone down the tubes and with the eat-only-when-hungry practice that we have taken to in our house, dinners have been sort of blah. What happened to the great motivation I had when I came back from San Diego after eating all that yummy food? I was trying out a new dish almost daily! Oh, yeah. I was on vacation from work and had the time to make a mess AND clean it up all in one night. Like I said, Saturday was a day spent washing, chopping, stirring, and cooking. Here’s what I made. You can click on each photo to be taken to the recipe. Ain’t that easy?

Black Bean Burgers

Quick & Creamy Vegetable Soup

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie

Taco Salad

I also made a walnut-cauliflower “meat” that will be used for a thick and hearty pasta sauce for later in the week. I will report back on how that turned out and post the recipe then. For breakfast one morning I heated up some apples, currants and blackberries and tossed them with walnuts, flax and cinnamon for a wonderful get-you-going sort of meal. It made a great topper for Handsome Healthy Hubby’s oatmeal. Even though he likes his oatmeal plain, he thought it was a nice addition. Sorry, no pictures for either of those dishes. Oh, and another one — Wow, I guess I was busy — was a kale salad with a creamy avocado dressing. It was very good. I will tweak the salad ingredients and post that recipe too. It looks like I’ll be having another full day in the Glaze Family Test Kitchen again real soon. That’s okay. Being in the kitchen is very therapeutic for me.

No sugar:

Friday evening H³ and I went for Thai food. I was having a hankerin’ for one of my favorite Thai dishes, fresh spring rolls. Now, the rolls are fine by themselves, but it’s that dipping sauce. I totally forgot how much sugar they put in the two varieties that this particular restaurant serves. Yowza! So after my commitment to no sugar, I blew it right off the bat. I was a little upset with myself, but I justify it with playing the ignorance card. But you know what the cool thing is with this diet-style? There’s always the next meal to make amends with yourself. If you slip up, jump right back up and get going with your goals. That’s what I did. The rest of the weekend was clean eating. Do we count the Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie? Heck, no! It is sweetened with dates, and I have not found that dried fruit is a problem for me. I can take it or leave it. So to have one slice of pie after dinner is such a treat. I hope you’ll try the pie. It’s friend and fellow blogger, Carrie on Vegan’s recipe. She said I could post it. While we’re speaking of Carrie, why don’t you just hop right on over to her blog here.

I surprised myself:

You know what else I did this weekend? I registered for my very first 5k! Eeek! I’ve walked them before, but I’ve never run one. I have a little under two weeks to get prepared. Do you think it’s too late? ha ha! I can do it. I know I can, I know I can. I figured if I never registered it wasn’t going to happen. I feel like I’m ready and for the next two weeks will run at least three times a week to fully prepare. If nothing else, I can always wimp out and walk. 😀

Wrap Up:

Well, it’s my last week of work before my vacation! Summers are always so busy so it’s nice to have time off both at the beginning and end. I am looking forward to seeing Alex. We had a great talk on the phone Sunday and he is doing well, anxious to be finished and move along in this chapter of his life. He is also excited to come home for a couple of weeks and do some things he hasn’t done for a while… like sleep, hike & eat some “real food” as he calls my cooking. Wow! I am honored.

Anyway, enjoy your week. Will you try a new recipe this week? What will it be? I will see you back here Friday. I’d better get working on digging up a Fun Fact!

TGIF! As the weeks keep ticking off, Alex’s graduation date is getting closer and closer. I’m almost too excited for words. The other thing that’s exciting is that I just have one more Friday left of work and then I’m on vacation for three weeks! Woo-hoo! I can’t wait. I’ve never had three weeks off in a row. I’ve got some things planned during that time — including the often-talked-about trip to Missouri to give my Man Boy a hug — but the majority of the time off will be hanging out. I hope to get some extra Vitamin D (Can we store it up for the summer) and maybe get some yard work done, perhaps a little reading… but I digress as my mind wanders.

Friday Fun Fact:So last Friday I didn’t include a Fun Fact because I was offering a special tribute to my late father-in-law. (You can read it here.) This week the Fun Fact is about my most dreaded subject… (enter scary music here) SUGAR! I’m not sure if it’s a dreaded subject, but perhaps a difficult food for me. I’ve talked about my sugar addiction, my battle with it and chocolate, and the fact that I’d been sugar free during the San Diego getaway and then for weeks afterwards (okay, maybe it was days rather than weeks — or maybe it was WEEK). I haven’t had anything dastardly sugary though. Gone are the cookies, the candy, the sweet treats forever. I haven’t had anything of the sort since before the end of June. So enough about me and my struggles and let’s get on to the facts.

In an article written by Dr. Fuhrman, he says that in 2009 the American Heart Association reported that on average, a typical American adult consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, and teens 34 teaspoons each day. Now, I’m not sure what a “typical American” is, but even when I was eating at my worst, I don’t think I took in that much sugar. But who really knows. It’s not like I was measuring my sugar intake.

Humans like sweet foods. Primates are the only animals that can taste sweetness. And that would be fine if all we ate was fruit to satisfy our sweet tooth, but instead we turn to table sugar, honey, brown sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, molasses, maple syrup … and the list goes on. You get the picture. Why don’t we just eat fruit then? Remember this Fun Fact that I shared about the dopamine effect?

Sugar lacks nutrient value and, through the body’s chemical reaction to process it, has been linked to different forms of cancer. Fruit is rich in nutrients and is health promoting. Berries promote brain health and have anti-aging effects. Apples have loads of fiber and fill you up. Citrus fruits decrease digestive tract cancer risk. These foods are all sweetened by nature and are good for us.

A little won’t hurt:

So I say, Shoot! I’m eating so much better than I ever have, so a little bit of sugar once in a while won’t hurt me right? That’s been my excuse previously for my once-a-week latte (which was reduced from a daily, sugar-sweetened chai tea lattes) that has at times slowly morphed into a daily decaf soy latte. And then I give them up for a while and the saga goes on. Over this last weekend, I was discussing my sugar dilemma with H³ and he shed great light on the subject. I just couldn’t reconcile in my mind what was wrong with my thinking. I don’t eat ice cream (dairy). I don’t eat chocolate bars & cookies (dairy & eggs). Why not have soy milk in my Teeccino or my cup of decaf coffee? What’s wrong with the occasional iced chai tea latte? Handsome Healthy Hubby turned the light bulb on in my head. I wouldn’t smoke just one cigarette a week. I know smoking is bad for me, causes cancer and is, in general, icky. I wouldn’t light up on a Saturday night when I’m out with friends just to relax and have a smoke, right? Why do I do something similar with a product that is in a lot of our foods? BECAUSE IT TASTES GOOD, I say!

So here I am again, on my sugar bandwagon. I’ve hopped on. From today on out, there will be no more sweetened soy milk in my latte. I will make my own almond or hemp milk at home, using dates to sweeten it. When we go out for our Sunday coffee date, it will be herbal tea, hot or iced. Can I let go of my nut butter & honey on toast for an occasional snack? Ugh! That might be harder. I think those are the last two sweet things that I need to put to rest. As I’m sitting here at the keyboard, I’m having an argument with myself that honey isn’t really a sugar. But didn’t I just, lines above ^^, write that it is? It has the same glycemic effect on our pancreas and is essentially a sugar, even though it is “natural.” Maybe it will be one thing at a time on this subject matter. I will have further discussion with myself about this later. For now, I’m making a commitment to no further sugar sweetened products. Just like I said no to meat and dairy, I’m saying no to sugar. Done. Now, that wasn’t so bad. Phewf!

Now, on to the recipe for today.

Hemp Almond Nutri-Milk:

<<insert almond hemp milk picture>>

(As an aside, I somehow either lost my picture of my homemade milk or never took one, but left a space for it when I wrote today’s post. The picture below was “borrowed” from the Dr. Fuhrman recipe index.)

Click on the picture to be taken to the recipe.

I made this yummy hemp & almond milk when I got back from San Diego after having it there at breakfast. In my effort to avoid sugar (it’s in most shelf-stable and refrigerated nut milks — even the plain varieties), I will make time to whip up some homemade milks. This particular recipe works well on oatmeal, as a topper to a thick green smoothie, and it even was good in my tea, though it isn’t strained so it’s thick and settled on the bottom of the cup. You don’t want to keep it too long in the fridge. Max is about three days. A great way to store nut milk is to put it in canning jars, leaving a little room at the top for expansion, and pop it in the freezer. It’s very tasty! And because you use dates to sweeten it, it’s healthy all around. Hemp seeds are full of your Omega 3s and you want to get a good dose of them (or chia and flax) each day, so why not get them in your milk?

Weekly Wrap Up:

Well, that’s it for the week. I hope you try something new this weekend. I’m not sure what’s on the agenda for me, but I’m sure it will be fun. Maybe another hike with Daddy Long Legs! We’ve got to take advantage of this great weather when it’s here. It doesn’t last too long in this part of the country. Thanks for joining me today and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Hello, Monday! Wow… does the weekend go by oh so quickly for you too? I think I’m going to petition that we work a two-and-five schedule. Yeah, that means we flip flop and work two days and have five days off. I could get used to that. Or maybe I would end up wishing I had two more days off each week. Mm-hmm. That would be okay too.

So what did you do over the weekend? I hope it was something fun. My days off were pretty busy. Saturday the Glaze Family Test Kitchen was open and I made a few things that turned out pretty good. Curried Hummus — Bam! An Easy Curry Dish — Bam! Bam! Chocolate Raspberry Chia Pudding — Triple Bam! Almond Blueberry Trail Bars — kerplunk! It seemed that curry was the flavor of the day. The day started off innocently enough with making some hummus. I use the delectable spread for everything from dipping veggies and <gasp!> pita bread to salad dressing base to a spread for veggie wraps. While I was waiting for the food processor to do it’s thing with my usual, generic hummus, I thought, “Hmmmm… I wonder what it would taste like if I used curry powder instead of cumin?” Ta-da! Enter a new flavor sensation. You can find the recipe to a basic oil-free hummus over in the snack section of my recipes. Instead of the cumin, use whatever spices you’d like. Chipotle chili powder is good. Just start with a smaller amount of spice and make sure to taste it as you go, adding more to suit your palate.

Curry Curry:

Are you ready for the curry recipe? Yumm-oh is what I say. I hope you will too. You can just click on the picture to be taken to the recipe page. H³ doesn’t really like curry, so I made this all for myself. It made a fairly huge pot, so I’ll probably end up freezing some of it for lunches. I had it once served as pictured, once over lightly steamed kale, or you can add a little side of brown rice. Enjoy!

Handsome Healthy Hubby and I spent Sunday hiking in memory of his Dad. It’s a little thing we started last year on his birthday just five months after his death. You can read my tribute to him here. I’ll share with you a few pictures that both Daddy Long Legs (aka H³) and I took. He’s got much better photography skilz than I do, so bear with me. It was a great day up at Mt. Rainier for a hike. 11-ish miles in just under five hours, not too bad, when you consider most of it was up, up, up and at a relatively high elevation!

A little explanation for the one with me holding the thing that looks like a blue head: We have named that “The Noggin,” and our son had used that thing I will call garden statuary in a bunch of photos that he took and used for album art when he recorded a CD. When he headed off to Army Basic Training we decided to take The Noggin with us to different locations and take his picture and then send the photos to Alex. You never know where he might appear or what he might be doing. The Noggin even celebrated Alex’s birthday in style, complete with party hat & noise makers! Do you think he’d make it past TSA for a trip to Army graduation?

Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the speedster when we go hiking. It’s one of the downsides of being short elfin. Eventually, the man has got to stop to take a picture or two! I catch up then and we continue on. It’s always a good time. Now, if I could just perfect a good trail bar that won’t crumble to bits in our packs. I still have a couple of months to work on that one before hiking season is over. For now, I’ll stick to nuts and dried fruit. Trail food is different now that we are Nutritarians. No more beef jerky or cheese & crackers. I’m hoping to get in a couple-day backpack trip in August and try my hand at some homemade plant-based, dehydrated meals. Of course, if they’re failures when we are out in the wilderness we might have a problem. I’m not too good at foraging. I’d best come up with a testing plan, eh?!

Weekend Wrap Up:

Oh, we got some good news this weekend too. When Alex called he told us that he was accepted as a “Hometown Recruiter” and will be spending 18 days at home before heading off to his new duty station. That is such good news for us. Originally, the plan was to have him home for just four days, so we are definitely doing the happy dance. I just wonder what it will be like to have him home for so long when we’ve been empty nesters for five months and he hasn’t had his ‘rents around to tell him what to do. I will really have to focus on not being too motherly, I guess.

All in all it was an awesome weekend! Well, with that, I’ll sign off. I will “see” you on Friday with a new Fun Fact! Have a great week and remember… make it healthy!